SUPPLYING THE DESERS ARMY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3156, 7 August 1917, Page 8

SUPPLYING THE DESERS ARMY

. (By It, W. Kcay.)

THE A.S.C. IN EGYPT

A DEPOT IN SINAI

fAuthorised for publication by the "War Office, and circulated by the courtesy of the Royal Colonial Institute.] The work of a Main Supply.Depot in Egypt is interesting and absorbing, but to paraphrase a well-known line, "What do they know of supply work who only main supplies know?" The inquiry is suggested by a comparison of 'the many and varied duties of tho A.S.C.; and also, perhaps, by tho very good-humoured, but nono the less exasperating, patronage of Detail Issue Depots by their bigger brethren at tho base. Main Supplies tell us that they think in nothing less, than, thousands. Sometimes, indeed, in moments of post-prandial expansion, their thousands become millions! The mero Detail Supply subaltern, properly, impressed, begins to regard himself as a kind of decimal-nought— st harmless but unnecessary cypher in the great feeding problem. From Cairo to the "Back-o'-Bcyond." It was in the month of July, 1!)I5, that • Depot Unit of Supply No. X received orders to proceed from Cairo io the b'ack-o'-Beyond, and there prepare to cater for tho needs of some thousands of troops who would arrive a few days later. Behold us, then.—one hot, tired,,and very worried officer, and thirteen hot, tired, but perennially cheery u.c.o.'s and men —duly delivered at our desert destination, and feeling rather liko shipwrecked travellers marooned amid a boundless sea of sand. The unit, luckily, included an old soldier adept iu the art of erecting "tents, circular, give the common bell-tent its official designation —otherwise wo would certainly have had to bivouac that night. Darkness, however, found our little camp ui being, and tho Depot site already roughly marked out. Then a snack and a smoke, a final word to the sentry, and slumber, sweet and deep. ... It may havo beou minutes or hours lator that the O.C. heard, as in a dream, dimly, soft: padding foot-falls and stealthy snuffling* around his tent—jackals or and, with these novel noises of tho. wild, the honiely ; snoring of his weary men. . . Next morning up betimes, and a busy dfly of preparation, receiving, checking, and stacking tho stores that came, pouring in from tho Depot upon •which our own was based. By sundown we ivcro all dead-beat, but virtuously happy in tho, knowledge that -wo had kept well abreast of tho work. Happy, that is to say, all save our old soldier, to whom— as a reliable n.c.o — had been given the duty of sleeping in tho hospital-comforts marquee, and guarding its precious, content« from nocturnal thieves. This worthy son of Mars, with wonderful circumlocutions and extenuations, explained to the O.C. that he did not like sleeping alone. He had heard "queer noises'' the previous niftht, ho declared, and wanted a comrade in tho comforts-tent to share his lonely lot. • A Nocturne. This little difficulty satisfactorily arranged, once more to well-earned rest, the grateful night-wind of the desert, gently stirring tho tent-flaps and cooling our sun-scorched faces. • Soon a. cheerful nasal chorus broke forth loudly from tho lines—led, as usual, by tho .O.C.'s batman, who suffered from •adenoids, and whose stertorous trumpetings were.. of I their kind, unique. Then oblivion, thriceblessed ; whilst the great yellow disc of the moon mounted higher and higher in melancholy grandeur ' An ear-splitting yell, followed by a pandemonium of howls and crashes, brought us tumbling out of our tents prepared, ono and all to sell our lives dearly. The uproar centred in the comforts-tenf, and there, a moment later, ' the brilliant, moonlight revealed an amazing spectacle. The tightly closed tent-flap flew, open as by an internal explosion, and out shot tho two guardians as if Beelzebub himself were behind them! It was not the Father of Huns, however, who followed on theiv heels, but .1 big pariah dog which had sneaked into the tent, and, mad with terror of the awakened occupants, had joined with them in a frantic' scrimmage for the exit. In the darkness dog and men steepleckased blindly over crates and cases, finally bursting upoii our startled gazo with the sergeant leading by a short head. The night alarm ended in shrieks of laughter; even tho shaken holders of. the fort themselves oould not suppress a sheepish grin. But with loaded rifles in nervous and unaccustomed hands, it was really providential that nobody was shot, and the chief actors in this desert comedy were lucky to escape with a few cuts and contusions acquired in their wild gyrations with tho "wolf." as they insisted on calling the intruder. "Ally "Sloper's Cavalry." During the following days the troops began to arrive, and thereafter for a month or more it was all work and no play for our little outpost of "Ally Sloper's Cavalry." From 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. was a normal working day. Issues of stores to the twenty-three units drawing from our dump occupied the greater part of the morning. The dinner hour and an all-too-brief siesta brought us to mid-afternoon, and then receipts of stores, accounts, and preparations for the morrow kept us_ going until, sometimes, close on midnight. This,'be it remembered, on tho desert in the hottest month of au Egyptian summer, when we had to wear our helmets in our tents for fear of sunstroke, and at midday a metal spoon or fork burned one's fingers at the touch. Not, indeed, that we had much use for table cutlery at that hour of the day, for with the troops came horses, and with tho horses flies—flies blue and black and bottle-green, in countless myriads. Between sunrise and sunset to eat without swallowing the ''loathsome insects was a practical impossibility. They swarmed everywhere in buzzing, clinging clouds, and we soon gave up the unequal oontest and absorbed our necessary nutriment whilst, the ""enemy slept. Thus labour, sleep, and saving laughter punctuated our days and nights. The Unspeakable "Oont." ■ Speaking.-of laughter, the unspeakable camel, of course, was an unfailing source of merriment to all but those whose job it was to train him up in the way ho should go. Ono particularly offensive member of the species persistently refused to bend his knee to tho white man's burden, and snarled dyspeptically at the perspiring individual who vainly 6trove to get him into the necessary attitude of devotion. Impervious, alike to blows and blandishments, the abominable beast stood four-square on his knockkneed legs, and dispensed saliva and abuse impartially on all around. Then, in the midst of this futile and undignified fracas, arrived th<s Man who Knew. "'Ere, mate, it ain't no good 'itting the blighter. Wot you wants to do is to tug 'is 'ead-rope down liko this"—suiting the action to tho word—"and make a noise like emptying a bath." Gurgling and sucking with practised skill, tho newcomer gave the halter a final tug, and Io! tho "ooiit," protesting but submissive to u recognised command, sank slowly to his knobbly knees. Campaigning in tho. desert is' attended by discomforts and hardships such as stay-at-home folk cannot even imagine; but there is, as ever, another sido to the shield. One learns on foreign service that tho phrase "brotli9rs-in-arms" has morn than, conventional significance. One's faith in human nature, lost perchance in commercial competition or tho artificialities of society, is re-discovered when it thirsty. dust-caked Tommy offers a stranger the last precioiK dregs in Hi water-bottle, protesting with parched lips that ho has had plenty. . . . Verily, verily, Iho Mother Country may be proud of her splendid sons. Ego in the Desert. Not all, of course, cun answer to the name of Galahad. Occasionally one comes across individuals who, to describe it mildly, have lop much.Ego in their Cosmos. Ono well-remembered night a belated Unit arrived in tho camp lone after most of us had turned in, and loudly demanded rations. This Unit, by the way, w.ib newly out from home—so much, by way of cscuse, But .when its

Commanding Officer learned that the i.S.C. did not work all night as well as (ill day ho complained and snarled in a fashion irresistibly reminiscent of our dyspeptic camel. No rations available! No tents prepared! Scandalous! Shameful! ."Report you in the morning! There was, as it happened, one vacant tent near tho A.S.C. lines; and this tho angry gentleman promptly annexed, while his men bivouacked on the sand. Now • that tent had been occupied for some timo by a working-party of natives; and, although the fact was not obvious to the naked eye, it was still inhabited. Not to say crowded. . . . When that officer emerged in the morning he looked very tired. One might have surmised from his appearance, in fact, that he had not slept well. To our sympathetic greeting lie returned a suspicious and stony stare; and, bursting with emotions that no words could express, he stalked off to interview the Camp Commandant. Just round the corner of tho forage-stack, however, he stopped for a few moments, and seemed to be searching anxiously for—maybe—a collar-stud that had slipped down between his shoulders. . . . By now,- no .doubt, he is a seasoned soldier. Good luck to him! There Came a Day. Finally, there camo a day when tho O.C. Kations found that the'old familial sandscapo had taken on a strange unreality. The little clump of dusty datepalms danced a. wild fandango before his aching eyes, and ho heard tho billows breaking on a shore that never was. . . . Debility and a (ouch of the sun, was the M.O.'s diagnosis. A blessed word in tho medical vocabulary is that sumo "debility"—even more blessed than "Mesopotamia" lo the old lady of pious memory. For. debility covers a multitude of ailments; one of which debarred tho patient in question from further service in the desert, and relegated him to duty on the coast. Contrary to popular belief, service with tho A.S.C. does not. imply immortality, The Corps has no immunity from sun, and sickness, and fatigue. Stray bullets sometimes come our way, of course; but the chances are against such casualties. What is certain, however, is a full sha.ro of hard work and heavy responsibility; and thon more kicks than ha'penco for our pains. But it is all part of this rough game of war that wo are playing— and winning. And, as a philosophic friend of ours put. it on a certain sorrowful occasion: "I didn't join up for the benefit of my |ealth, Sir, nor yet. for to swank about with two stripes."